The Psychology of Hunger: Amazing Facts About the Way We Eat

“Eating mindfully” is the type of phrase you expect to hear from a nutritionist with an out-of-print self-help manual and an upsetting YouTube channel. But while it’s easy to shrug off this type of advice with stuff-upper-lip bravado, it’s impossible to deny the overwhelming evidence that our food impulses are, for the most part, all in our heads.

The psychology of eating is important to explore for two main reasons: It can help you understand your craving better should you have any desire to control them, and it can help you see through the marketing of big food brands that have done a huge amount of research to figure out how to hook you with their products. The field of food science is also just plain interesting, full of lab-tested mind games and shocking facts that make for great dinner-table conversation.

Here, we take a quick survey of some of the most interesting findings from food psychology studies. Find out why poor sleep makes you crave egg-and-cheese sandwiches, what the “buffet effect” is, and how many cheeseburgers you need to achieve the pleasure of an orgasm,

Rituals can actually make food more flavorful.

You already know this because… Nothing ever tasted as good as those Oreos you used to eat after school, sitting at the same table, at the same time each day, twisting and dunking in your own borderline OCD way. Same goes for those memories of meals you had on vacation—the ritual of traveling to a new place, anticipating the food, and enjoying it in a deliberate, memory-making way might be part of the reason why nothing will ever live up to the experience.
What science says: A recent New York Times piece delves into the psychology of food rituals, and how they can intensify our perception of flavor. In one experiment conducted at the University of Minnesota and Harvard University, 52 students were split into two groups and given chocolate bars. One group was told to break the chocolate bar in half, then unwrap and eat the halves individually. The other group just tore straight into the chocolate bar. According to the Times pieces, "The camp that followed the two-step ritual rated their pleasure higher, and the chocolate more flavorful, than those who just ate their bars."
Why it matters: Susan Albers, a psychologist who specializes in eating behavior at the Cleveland Clinic Family Health Center in Wooster, OH, says, “This study has great potential to help people create rituals and to savor food and choose healthier foods.” If rituals help you enjoy your favorite foods—like mom's spaghetti and meatballs, or your daily bag of chips from the vending machine—they could also help improve your enjoyment of healthier options. This knowledge could also be used for corporate ends, however. In the same trial mentioned above, the people who followed the two-step ritual said "they would be willing to pay 25 cents more, on average, for the bar and took longer to savor it." So junk food brands that can create a product that lends itself to ritualized eating—like, say, Oreo's—can exercise serious mind control over consumers.

Food companies control your mind with texture.

You already know this because… You have strong feelings about tofu. You prefer day-old, soggy fried chicken to the crunchy, fresh-out-of-the-oil stuff. You're a Chobani-over-Fage person. Even if we're not always consciously aware of it, most of us tend towards foods certain textures.
What science says: The Wall Street Journal recently investigated the influence of texture on taste, noting the interest that the food companies have taken in studying this correlation to drive their product development and marketing. According to Jack Fortnum, president of the North American business at Ingredion Inc., a food-ingredient processor that holds hundreds of consumer taste tests a year, texture "is just as important as taste or flavor, in many cases."
Why it matters: It's one of the driving forces behind the snack-food market. Companies are pouring a huge amount of money into targeting "chewers" (43% of the market), "crunchers" (33%), "smoothers" (16%), and "suckers" (8%) through their branding of various products (e.g., Jacked Doritos, Chewy Chips Ahoy, and so on). It's so in your face, you might be numb to it—as the WSJ notes, "There were 20,790 new food packages world-wide making a texture claim in 2012, roughly double the number in 2008."

In terms of pleasure, two cheeseburgers are roughly equivalent to one orgasm.

You already know this because… You've passed on sex to go to Five Guys. Don't lie.
What science says: The part of the brain that registers pleasure is triggered by dopamine. Thus, by measuring the level of dopamine delivered by eating and having sex, scientists can quantify roughly how pleasurable these experiences are. Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D makes the cheeseburger-orgasm calculation using this principle on Frontline. George Constanza was onto something.Why it matters: Cheeseburgers are a lot easier to come by than sexual partners.

The sense of smell represents 80% of flavor.

You already know this because… You can pinch your nose and put a piece of candy in your mouth and not be able to determine anything about the flavor beyond the fact that it's sweet. (Go ahead, try it—it's a fun party trick.)
What science says: In a 1992 New York Times article, Dr. Stephen D. Roper, a neurobiologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, explained, "Without a sense of smell, you would never know the flavor of the shrimp. But even if the olfactory system is destroyed, you can still sense the four basic tastes. You would sense that a jellybean is sweet, but you could not tell if the flavor is lemon or licorice." To get a little nerdy, understanding the way smell contributes to taste is all about the two types of smelling: orthonasal (sniffing in) and retronasal (from the back of the mouth). Gordon M. Shepherd, author of Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters, explains the latter on Salon.com: "While we might not be aware of it, vapors that come from our food while we are breathing out stimulate cells in our nose. That is how smell contributes to flavor. We don’t realize it because all we usually notice is the mouth-feel, the textural quality of food."
Why it matters: From avant-garde chefs who waft smoking cedar chips at your table, to the unmistakable smell of a McDonald's, aromas can be used to skew your perception of food in incredibly powerful ways.

Sleeping poorly makes you crave fatty foods.

You already know this because… The morning after an all-nighter, all you want is a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.
What science says: It's long been proven that fatty foods can interfere with sleep. But this Time piece suggests a reverse causality as well—rather than sleeping poorly because you eat fatty foods, maybe you’re eating fatty foods because you’re sleeping poorly.Why it matters: As this science develops, it could open up new avenues in nutritional development, like finding “the right mix of calories and nutrients to promote better sleep, which could become a low-cost strategy to curb obesity and heart disease.”

You're three times more likely to eat the first thing you see in the pantry than the fifth.

You already know this because… You've raided a fridge before.
What science says: This tidbit comes from Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating.Why it matters: If you put healthier snacks in more visible positions in your pantry, you might actually eat them.

The “buffet effect" is very real.

You already know this because… You've been to a buffet and eaten until you feel psychically ill.
What science says: Here's Professor Shepherd again on Salon.com: "The buffet effect, also known as the cafeteria effect, relies on the assumption that if you have only one food in front of you, you will stop eating when you are full. But if someone brings you another plate with a different type of food on it, you are likely to keep eating."
Why it matters: Yet again, this knowledge can be used for good and evil. Those who want to control their diets should limit the variety of food in any one meal and control portion sizes. But of course, fast-food companies play into the "buffet effect" to get you to buy more, offering all sorts of add-ons and extras. People who are obese are particularly prone to this type of impulsive eating.

Your perception of how much you're eating can make you feel more or less full, even if the amount of food is the same.

You already know this because… When you convince yourself had a big lunch (mostly by talking endlessly about what a big lunch you had), you're less likely to be hungry at dinnertime, even if in reality the size of the lunch was not so different from what you usually eat.
What science says: This theory is supported by a study appearing in the journal PLOS ONE, in which the researchers presented 100 adult participants with two serving sizes of tomato soup (10 ounces versus 17 ounces). The participants were asked to finish their soup. For half of the group, their bowls were rigged to refill or drain the contents imperceptibly. Those who ate more actual soup reported being fuller immediately after eating. But a few hours later, perception became the determining factor in how hungry participants felt—those who thought they had eaten 17 ounces indicated that they were less hungry, even if they had only had 10 ounces in reality. The lead author Jeffrey M. Brunstorm finds “the memory of our previous meal may have a bigger influence on our appetite than the actual size of the meal.”Why it matters: If feeling hungry is all in your head, so to speak, you can exercise more control over it. Mindful eating is key: Turn off the TV, put away your iPhone, and focus on what's on your plate so you have an accurate sense of what you ate. Also, eat from a smaller plate.

Creating weird food combinations may be a sign of binge-eating.

You already know this because… Half a billion Doritos Locos Tacos were sold in a year, and hybrid foods dominate the fat-kid zeitgeist.
What science says: This theory has not been tested widely, but Science Daily reports that making random food concoctions can be a sign of binge eating. A recent study by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, to be published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, concluded that “people who concoct are more likely to binge eat than those who overeat without bingeing.” Researchers found “1 in 4 survey participants secretly create concoctions.” And get this: Those who admit to concocting “reported the same emotions as drug users during the act; they also reported later feelings of shame and disgust, which could fuel an existing disorder.”
Why it matters: It would explain why self-control is so futile in the face of ramen burgers and waffle tacos.

Color affects your feelings about food.

You already know this because… Oatmeal seems boring for breakfast, but pancakes with bright red strawberries look delicious. Also, think about how jarring artificial flavors are in candy when the color doesn't match the flavor you expect.
What science says: Many studies have been done to show how color can trick our sense of taste. For example, white wine dyed red caused 54 enology students at the University of Bordeaux to attribute characteristics of red wine—like a nose of chocolate and tobacco—to the vino. It can also affect perceptions of how hungry you are: A recent study from Cornell University showed that people eat more if the food color matches the plate, while a contrast will have the opposite effect. Variety—like, say, a mixed bowl of M&Ms—is likely to cause overindulgence.
Why it matters: You can control overeating by sticking to monochromatic foods. Or, if you're a food company, you can mess with people's perceptions of taste through color. It also keeps those weird restaurants where you eat in the dark in business—not being able to see food, particularly its color, has a definite effect on how you taste it.

You can improve your productivity by 20% through food choices alone.

You already know this because… When you eat a doughnut hole for breakfast, you're dead by 1pm.
What science says: The World Health Organization has said that adequate nourishment can raise national productivity levels by 20 percent. The key is maintaining good levels of glucose, which gives our brain fuel. This article by Buffer quotes brain researcher Leigh Gibson, who says, "The brain works best with about 25 grams of glucose circulating in the blood stream—about the amount found in a banana." For an immediate effect, something like a glazed doughnut will get you going, but it releases glucose very quickly. You want slow-release glucose through foods like oats.
Why it matters: Stop trying to run (exclusively) in Dunkin'.

Some people really do taste soap when they eat cilantro.

You already know this because… The "I Hate Cilantro" Facebook page has more than 12,000 likes.
What science says: In 2010, food-science maven Harold McGee of the New York Times took a deep dive into cilantrophobia, examining how the herb became so divisive. While the genetic issues often cited by cilantro haters are still murky, McGee finds plenty of evidence—historical, chemical, and neurological—to support the condition. One of the most interesting findings is that the soapiness that some people associate with the herb is caused by its chemical makeup: "Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects."
Why it matters: In the piece, Jay Gottfried, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, explains how you can train your brain to react less strongly to cilantro. McGee also finds that crushing the leaves can make it less offensive to cilantrophobes—try a cilantro pesto (a Mediterranean preparation) and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Latest News

Now Trending

FIRST WE FEAST participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means FIRST WE FEAST gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.